1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a nestable transport container, particularly of plastics material. The transport container has a preferably rectangular bottom and outwardly inclined side walls which are integrally connected to and extend upwardly from the bottom. The upper edges of the side walls define a container opening.
2. Description of the Related Art
Transport containers of the above-described type are known on the market. If the transport containers are used for shipping goods over longer distances, it is also known in the art to close the container openings with separate, removable covers.
However, it has been found in this connection that, when the empty containers are shipped back nested into one another, the loose covers must be collected and must be returned separately. This causes losses.
In accordance with a solution which has become known on the market, the loose covers can be folded together by a central transverse hinge and can be placed on the bottom of each container. However, since the covers are still separate from the containers, losses cannot be avoided.
The aforementioned losses do not occur in another known solution in which longitudinally divided covers forming so-called cover halves are permanently connected through hinges to the longitudinal sides of the containers. However, these containers can only be nested into one another for return shipment after the cover halves have been folded out previously.
While the solution with the longitudinally divided cover is practical, it has a disadvantage which becomes more serious when the containers are nested into each more deeply. Thus, the cover halves which are folded out on both sides of the container inevitably come to rest on top of one another in a scale-like manner and spread outwardly from the containers, so that valuable storage space is lost when several container columns are placed next to each other, for example, in a truck container or hold. In addition, the cover halves which overlap each other in a scale-like manner impact each other from column to column, so that the occurring impact forces which are considerable must be absorbed by the sensitive hinges of the cover halves.
The same danger exists for the hinges during in-house operations, when the open containers are conveyed on conveyor tracks prior to and after filling of the containers and the folded-out cover halves come into contact with each other when the containers travel in curves of the conveyor track. This is because the folded-out cover halves project outwardly beyond the border edges of the containers. In addition, the cover halves which are relatively flat must absorb undesirable loads when filled containers with their folded-in cover halves are stacked on top of each other.